Big Oops

This guy had his first x-rays at the dentist this morning:

 

 

And, regardless of the twice-daily brushings and the daily fluoride, he has eight cavities.  EIGHT.  All of them are in his molars, in the spaces in between.  He has four filling appointments between now and the end of the month.

 

As you might imagine, this was not news I wanted to hear first thing this morning.

 

I feel like such a failure.  Here we have limited sugary drinks and emphasized brushing and it didn’t mean a thing.  I floss my kids’ teeth, but clearly not enough.  I was lazy about flossing (even though I floss my own teeth every night and feel dirty and gross when I don’t), and now my son has to go through four agony-filled dental appointments at age five.  And I have to shell out a LOT of money and sit through four agony-filled dental appointments with a baby in my arms the whole time.

 

It’s (not) funny how one thing, one simple thing like this, will send me in to a spiral and throw everything else that sucks into sharp relief.  Freddie is one month old today, and I was thinking I might spend the day gazing at his chubby cheeks and marveling the speedy passage of time, but instead I am contemplating the abundance of medical and dental bills (it’s expensive to have a child and expensive to prevent having children) and how it feels like we can never, ever get ahead.  I think about how I want so badly to lose the weight I gained during pregnancy but I have so little will power that I bought Double-Stuff Oreos at the grocery store this evening and already ate a third of the package).  I could have taken the dog for a walk tonight but I just wanted to sit on the couch in my pajamas instead.  I will never be thin again.  I think about the mom and wife I want to be and the mom and wife I am, yelling at my kids and snapping at my husband.  I feel like no one listens to me.

 

And perhaps worst of all, Tony, Charles, and Jamie are leaving me for a weekend.  They leave tomorrow morning and won’t be back until Monday.  Three nights of taking care of Freddie all on my own.  Four days of extremely limited contact with adults.  Four days with no one else to make the coffee, no one else to unload the dishwasher, no one else to give me even a moment’s break from caring for an infant.  Four days of missing my children even though they drive me crazy every minute lately.  Four days of missing out on all the fun vacation things my kids and husband will be doing.  Even my brother is going.

 

This is life, I guess.  Constant sacrifice.  Seasons when things just aren’t fun.  Times when you have to work extra hard to make up for missteps. 

 

I just hope things will look up again someday.